Shadows at Night
by AbigailandTabitha
Summary: Ellie was a normal girl from Earth until one stormy night when she was 10 changed that all. Now a student of Ravenwood Ellie must fight to return to Earth.
1. The Storm that Changed Me

I was only 10 when it happened. I was chasing after my dog, Sparky, in the rain when suddenly a white hot flash of pain shot through my entire body. I was apparently knocked unconscious after that. When I awoke I was in a bed that wasn't mine. On the foot of the bed sat a rather old looking man. I started screaming and fought my way out of the bed and landed on the floor.

"Ellie," the man said, "Please calm down."

"Calm down! You want me to calm down! You kidnapped me! Who are you? How do you know my name?" I yelled frantically while backing away from the approaching man.

"My name is Merle Ambrose. Headmaster at Ravenwood School of the magical arts. As for the 'kidnapping', If I hadn't brought you here you would've died. You were struck by lightning on your home world."

"what do you mean 'home world'?" I asked

"Earth is a world that is just out of the spirals jurisdiction. We had a promise with the earliest settlers, the 'Native Americans' as you call them, that us wizards would only come to earth if summoned. But I broke that promise to save you Ellie, so really you should be grateful."

"Wizards? Spirals? Ok I've officially gone crazy."

"No, this all real." Ambrose said

"ok if this is real, send me home." I challenged, just wanting to leave.

"I'm afraid I can't"

"why?" fear was obvious in my tone.

"Because you're dead in that timeline. You've been buried, or cremated, depends, and most likely already forgotten. Spiral time is a lot slower than earth time. A day here is three on earth."

"How long have I been here?"

"Two weeks so 42 days on earth. I'm truly sorry Ellie. But if you wish you can start a life here, and attend Ravenwood, tuition and housing is free but you'll have to take a test to be sorted into you're classes. Come see me tomorrow if you're interested. If you don't then you'll have to get a job and buy a house since right now you're in a student dorm. But now, rest Ellie."

That night I decided two things 1, I'd find my way back to earth and 2, until then I'd become a student so I'd have somewhere to stay.


	2. Kayla

_"__Black mag·ic Noun Magic involving the supposed invocation of evil spirits for evil purposes." _The blackboard read. I was sitting in the back of my history of Magic Class with Gamma droning on and on about how black magic was bad and banned.

"Isn't death magic black magic?" asked one of the girls in my class. Her name was Sierra DarkBlood, a novice necromancer.

"Goodness no!" Gamma practically screeched, "death magic summons spirits yes but they are not evil. Now let's continue."

Before Gamma could continue the bell rang signaling that it was time for fourth period. "have a safe weekend!" Gamma called as we all bolted for the door. Time for my last class of the day, Divination.

When I took the sorting test years ago I was chosen for the storm school. I actually find the class interseting, we always do experiments and the professor is very eccentric, I mean for a frog. Yeah you heard me right he's a frog. His names Halston Balestrom, no one knows where he came from but there's a rumor going around that he was arrested in Marleybone a long time ago.

"Good afternoon class!" his high voice called, "take a seat, today is our test day!" I don't know why but he always makes things seem happier than they are.

The test was easier than I thought. It was about the history of Storm magic. It was founded by the titans in an attempt to wash out the dragons, blah blah this stuff we learned on the first day and we're having a test on it now? After I turned in my test I sat back down at my desk and waited for the others to finish. Maybe if we finished in time we'd begin to learn tempest.

I was lost in a daydream when I felt someone tap me on my shoulder. I looked over and saw the girl that sat next to me staring at me. She slid me a piece of paper. On it was a gorgeous cursive script that read "You're the girl from earth right?"

I quickly wrote back "Yeah, my names Ellie by the way." I slid the paper back. I watched her as she wrote back. She looked very focused on keeping her writing perfect. She suddenly looked up at me; with a smile she slid the paper back.

"My name's Kayla. I assume you're a full blooded diviner? I'm a necromancer but I'm taking divination for fun. What was earth like?"

The rest of the class went by with us writing notes while the rest of the class took the test. I told her all about earth and I couldn't help but love the way her face lit up with excitement when I told her about modern inventions, like tv, and how they worked. I wouldn't admit it at the time but I was sad when the bell rang. I watched as Kayla disappeared into the sea of students and was excited for Monday to come.


	3. Fallon's Party

As I walked towards the shopping district after class I was ambushed by my friend Abigail. Abigail was a theurgist from Wizard City who still lived with her parents. I met her in my crafting class, she'd accidentally sewn the sleeve of her robe to another piece of fabric and I helped her to undo the stiches. We soon became close friends and I even told her my plans to return to Earth and she promised not only to keep it secret but to also help me in any way possible.

"Hey Elle!" she called as she wrapped her arms around me in a hug. I embraced her back and took a long whiff of her hair. It might seem a bit weird but she always smelled of lavender, my favorite flower.

"Hey Abby." I replied as we let go of each other.

"Me and Alia are going to go to Fallon's house for a party, want to come?" She asked. Alia and Fallon were two of Abby's childhood friends. Alia was a thaumaturge and born blind. She always had her Seeing Eye dog, Heidi with her. Fallon was a Pyromancer and one of the more popular girls at Ravenwood. She was always hosting parties over weekends and breaks that almost everyone went to, myself included.

"Sure." I said. While I didn't have many friends I still enjoyed parties, it was fun to do the practice duels in the battle arenas and listen to the banter shared between the opposing sides.

"Awesome! The parties not for another hour but I figured the three of us could help Fallon set up." While Alia was blind her other senses were heightened and together they created a mental image of what a place looked like. So Alia still was able to do just as much, and sometimes more than a person who could see.

"Ok. Let's go then." With that Abby's hand and she twirled her wand into the formation of a spiral and we were teleported to Fallon's house where she and Alia were waiting for us.

Fallon's house was a large castle style house that was always decorated to the nines with vintage Avalonian furniture. Outside to the left was a battle arena where basically everyone spent their time. Fallon had already set up the refreshments table but needed help putting up the streamers.

"I don't know why you do this." I said after Abby and I had put them all up, "you know they are going to tear them down and leave them on the floor for you to pick up."

"It gives the girls something to distract the guys." Alia snidely remarked for where she sat on the benches that lined the walls."

"Alright play nice guys, some guests are arriving." Fallon said as people started filing in.

It was roughly halfway through the party I had completely lost sight of Alia and Abby. I maneuvered through the crowd in hopes of finding them when instead I saw Kayla. I decided to give up my search and go talk to her. When I was only a couple feet away I noticed she was talking to a guy, probably death as well, who had his arm around her waist. Kayla suddenly turned around and saw me.

"Ellie!" she said. It struck me then that this was the first time I'd actually heard her voice. "This is my boyfriend, Angel. Angel, this is Ellie, she's in my divination class and she's the girl from Earth." Angel looked at me with an emotionless face and nodded, I nodded back.

"Uh I got to go," I said, "I'm looking for my friends." with that I left and tried to deny the fact I was jealous of Angel.


	4. The Headmasters Office

It was the day after the party; I spent the night at Fallon's house for I was too tired that night to return to my dorm. I awoke to someone jostling me; I slowly opened my eyes and saw Abby looking extremely anxious.

"Alright what's up?" I asked groggily

"Ambrose needs us, he said it's urgent." She said as she pulled me up out of bed and pushed me towards the bathroom after shoving some of Fallons old clothes into my arms.

I got changed and we left.

I followed Abby to the headmasters office. When we entered I saw the headmaster staring at his crystal ball.

"Thank you for coming girls," said Ambrose not looking up from the ball "I called you here today because there is trouble along the horizon. Not too long ago I taught a girl named Morganthe. She was like a daughter to me and I saw a potential for her to become a headmaster herself but after her brother died she lost herself to the dark arts of shadow. It has been ages since I last saw her but rumor has it that she is in Celestia, planning an attack on the spiral. Would you please go check the legitimacy of this rumor? Here is the spiral key to Celestia, be careful with it, Halston just fixed it." Ambrose was still staring at his crystal ball even when we left.

"Are we really doing this?" I asked. I may of been here for four years but I still didn't trust Ambrose, anyways he was at least 90 years old so he could be hearing or seeing things. Why did anyone trust him?

"Well, not alone." Abby answered, "We're getting help from some of my friends."


	5. A Not so Sunny Pasta

"Why are we at the library?" I asked Abby as we stood underneath the awning of said building.

"I told you we're getting help from some of my friends." she said as she pushed open the door and the scent of old books and ink rushed to meet us. Upon entering she made a beeline for a girl with long blonde hair pulled into a messy ponytail who sat on the stairs reading a book. "Sunny!" Abby said as she sat by the girl and pulled her into a hug which the girl returned.

"Hi Abby." The girl said as she pulled away from the hug and looked at me. "who's this?"

"Oh right, Ellie, this is Sunny. Sunny this is Ellie." Abby said, gesturing to both of us.

"You're the earth girl?" Sunny asked quirking an eyebrow.

"Yeah that's me." I said as I awkwardly looked around.

"Sunny we need your help." Abby said picking up the conversation. "Headmaster Ambrose thinks some lady named Morganthe is going to attack. He needs all the help he can get. will you please help?"

"Abby," Sunny said with a sudden dark look on her face, "have you not learned from the malistaire accident? We lost Johnny because Ambrose said he couldn't fight malistaire himself so he sent a bunch of novice wizards out to fight him."

"it's different-" Abby tried to say but was cut off by Sunny.

"No it's literally the same thing happening again and you're willingly going along with it!" Sunny snapped before she turned her back to us and said "I refuse to see anymore friends die because of the fact that Ambrose refuses to take care of his own business." With that Sunny stalked off into a deeper section of the library.

"Should've known she'd act like that." Abby muttered under her breath as she ducked her head, "Sorry you had to see that Ellie, Sunny never really got over Johnny's death and as you can see she blames the Headmaster."

"Who even is Johnny?" I asked

"He was a friend of me, Sunny and Alia. He helped us in the malistaire battle, but at the cost of his life. He was pierced by an arrow that one of malistaire's minions shot and he died shortly after. We all took his death pretty hard especially Alia, she and him had a connection no one could describe but she eventually moved on as did I but Sunny still lives in the past, thinking of the 'what ifs'." Abby said, "But I digress; now c'mon, Alia will surely help us." With that she grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the library. Sunny's words still rand in my head though

_"__I refuse to see anymore friends die because of the fact Ambrose refuses to take care of his own business."_


	6. Blinded

Abby must've dragged me around Wizard City for hours before we entered Colossus Boulevard I shivered at the sudden rush of cold while Abby continued to drag me down the sidewalk.

"Watch for the Gobblers." Abby said as I stared, slightly shocked, at the gobbler sitting on the roof of a broken down house.

"Are they _eating the house?_" I asked

"Yep, gobblers eat pretty much anything." Abby said before suddenly stopping. When I finally tore my gaze away from the gobbler I saw Alia sitting on a mound of snow under a tree with Heidi sitting on her lap while she petted her.

"Hey Abby, hey Ellie." Alia said as she continued to pet Heidi

"How'd you know it was us?" Abby asked as she leaned against the tree trying to look cool.

"I could say something deep and meaningful about how I can sense you but to be honest I could hear you down the street.

"Were we really that loud?" I asked trying to hold back a laugh when Abby's back slid down the tree and she fell.

"Yes." Alia said in between laughing as Abby picked herself up.

"Why are you laughing? It's not like you saw it happen." Abby said as she tried to salvage some dignity and stood back up.

"The sound you made was absolutely hilarious." Alia said before she finally calmed down. "So why'd you come all the way out here for? And don't try to pull that 'oh we just wanted to visit' crap on me because I know better."

"Ambrose wants us to take down a lady named Morganthe because he believes she's going to attack and we could us all the help we can get. What do you say?" Abby asked with a hopeful look in her eyes

"Alright, someone's got to make sure you two don't go falling off the edge of a cliff or something." Alia said before standing up, "c'mon Heidi we're going on an adventure." At this the Seeing Eye dog perked up and started running around Alia, barking up a storm. We all laughed, not knowing that this would be one of the last times we would have a genuine laugh for a while.


End file.
